~ A place of unexpected discoveries and fortuitous happenstance

The Word Is Gay

My friend Hugh Hollowell wrote this piece and has given me permission to repost it here on Serendipitydodah. Hugh works as an inner-city minister in Raleigh, NC. That means he spends most of his time with folks who are either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, and telling folks of faith about the work he does. To facilitate the work, he founded Love Wins Ministries in spring of 2008. He is married to Renee and they have two cats – Tony and Felix.

Here’s a couple of links (a short video and a letter) that will give you a better idea of the wonderful work that Hugh does. If his ministry captures your heart (like it did mine) you may find yourself wanting to help. One way to help is to support Love Wins financially. You can do that here.

A while back, I was in a room full of fairly conservative church folk, largely in positions of church leadership, who were trying to understand “the homosexual question”. There were 75 or so of them who, in all fairness to them, were really trying to create a safe space to talk.

The format of the event was a short talk from the denominational representative, and then each person that wanted it got three minutes, max, to talk without interruption. It was instructive to hear all the opinions in the room, and it quickly became obvious that what was most prevalent in that room was just lack of knowledge.

I was a guest, so I was determined to not speak up – I was just there to listen. I sat through people talking about the “homosexual agenda”, through concerns about Biblical fidelity, heard stories about how it was not an issue in their church because of how they had a homosexual couple visit back in 1994 and they treated them just like normal people.

Sigh.

Finally, I had had enough. The people in the room that knew me were a little nervous when they say me stand in line to go to the front of the room to claim my three minutes.

“I am a guest here, and I had not planned on saying anything. Instead, I wanted the opportunity to learn from all of you. However, it is probably safe to say that in my context, I minister to more openly gay people than any of you do, and I wanted to share something with you I found.

Most of the gay people I know tell me that the only people who call them homosexual are Evangelical Christians who want to ‘convert’ them. In other words, when you call a gay person a homosexual, you are using code that tells that person you are probably not an open, accepting person. And I can tell from the conversations that I have heard here today that whatever the positions in this room on this issue, no one yet has said they wanted to be inhospitable.

A fundamental human right is to get to decide what you want people to call you. And the people we are in this room talking about want to be called gay. Gay is always appropriate. There are other words – lesbian, queer and so on. But the safest one is gay.”

And I sat down.

Crickets.

I ducked out to try to find the bathroom. When I came back, three people were in the hallway, waiting to talk to me.

One was an elderly man who had marched back in the sixties, who wanted to know how he could learn more. One was a female college student who thanked me for my “prophetic voice”. And one was a 20 something man who came out to me. I was the first church person he had told.

If letting people know that calling people what they want to be called is important, we have more work to do than I had thought. And if our conversations don’t lead to us having enough knowledge to know what to call people, we are simply having the wrong conversations.

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Serendipitydodah for Moms is a private Facebook group created as an extension of the Serendipitydodah blog. The group is set up so only members can see who is in the group and what is posted there. The group was started in June 2014 and presently has more than 1,200 members. The space was specifically created for open minded Christian moms who have LGBTQ kids and want to develop and maintain healthy, loving, authentic relationships with their LGBTQ kids. In addition to providing a space for members to share info and support one another, a special guest is added each month for a few days. The guests include authors, pastors, LGBTQ people, bloggers and public speakers. For more info email lizdyer55@gmail.com